Data shows that Instagram has over 1.45 billion users in April 2022. A small fraction of those users is able to use Instagram to make money. Some influencers on Instagram are even able to make millions per year on the platform.
Today, we’ll look at the 10 ways you can monetize Instagram.
Table of Contents
1. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is the act of selling someone else’s product for a cut of the profit.
- Step 1: You’ll use platforms such as ShareASale or ClickBank to find a company to work with
- Step 2: You’ll endorse the products through your Instagram account in the form of a post and/or story
- Step 3: You’ll place the link in your bio
- Step 4: You’ll make a cut of the profit every time someone buys something through the link
Make sure you only work with companies that you trust and endorse products you’ve used and are satisfied with otherwise you could damage your brand image.
2. Shoutouts
You’d essentially be promoting someone else’s account or brand when someone buys a shoutout from you.
Shoutouts can cost different amounts depending on your engagement rate and the number of followers you have.
The more followers you have, the more you make from each shoutout. The higher your engagement rate, the more you can make from each shoutout.
If you have between 5000–10,000 followers, you can charge about $50 — $100 per shoutout.
If you have between 100,000–500,000 followers, you can charge $250 per shoutout.
If you have between 500,000–1M followers, you can charge $1000 per shoutout.
If you have more than 1M followers, you can charge $1500 per shoutout.
Your engagement rate should be between 1% — 5%.
To figure out your engagement rate you should take the number of likes on a post divided by the number of followers you have and then multiply by 100.
- Number of likes / number of followers X 100 = engagement rate on a post
- A number of views / number of followers X 100 = engagement rate on a story
If your engagement rate is above 1% you don’t have anything to worry about. If your engagement rate is less than 1%, it could signify that you may have bought your followers and that wouldn’t be good.
Brands will typically stay away from accounts with less than 1% engagement.
3. Patreon
Another way you can make money is via Patreon.
This is commonly seen in the art niche where the artist share comics, art pieces, drawing tips, etc, and whoever likes the account may choose to donate money to the artist on a monthly basis via Patreon.
You can set you your Patreon account and give people incentives for signing up.
You can offer the following on your Patreon account:
- Exclusive behind the scene look
- Extra content
- See the extra content earlier
- Discount in stores
- A chance to win a gift
If each Patreon donates $5 to you each month, you’d need 800 people to make $4000 per month which is enough to live off of for most people.
4. Sponsorship
Sponsorship works similarly to affiliate marketing but it’s different in that you don’t necessarily make recurring income for each sale you make through the link.
With a sponsorship, you may talk about a brand and/or another Instagram account and they’ll pay you in exchange.
The rate of sponsorship differs based on the niche you’re in and the number of following you have but the amount to which you get paid is similar to shoutouts.
- 5000–10,000: $50 — $100
- 100,000–500,000: $250
- 500,000–1M: $1500
5. Consultation
You can use Calendly to offer space for your virtual consultation service.
For instance, say you have grown a pretty sizable following on Instagram, you can offer a 1-on-1 consultation to help others achieve the same thing with their Instagram. You’ll share tips, and strategies, and look over their account with them to point out things they could improve on.
You can offer a wide range of consultations based on your niche.
6. Courses
You can’t sell a course directly on Instagram but you can advertise your course on Instagram.
You’ll have to make sure the course you advertise is related to your niche and the only thing you post should not only be an advertisement for your course.
You can also pay someone to advertise your course for you instead of doing everything on your profile page.
7. Instagram Shop
Instagram allows you to open up a shop directly on Instagram. You can implement tags in your post so the audience knows that certain items are available for purchase.
Sometimes your viewers may directly DM you which can be overwhelming if you get a lot of messages. You can either hire someone to help you sort through your messages or you can use a chatbot to help you out.
8. Sell merch
If you don’t know what’s print on demand you can click here. It’s a comprehensive step-by-step article on how you can sell print-on-demand merch.
The way this works is that you will upload your design and create the merch listings for free. You can share the link in your bio and promote the products in your story and/or posts. When someone purchases the merch from the store, the merch gets printed and shipped to the customer without you handling any of it.
Let someone else handle the printing, packaging, shipping, and returning for you. All you do is upload the design and market the merch.
9. Discord community
Discord is basically a place for people to create chatrooms and share the chatroom link with the audience of their choosing.
You can select who you want to join your Discord community which means there is a potential to monetize your community.
You can create an exclusive community that helps people in some ways. Only those who paid can join.
You’ll have to decide what your community should discuss and what your community should do.
Will there be games? Will there be prizes to be won? Will there be anybody special in the community? Perhaps a celebrity? Will you share any tips and tricks to do something?
You have to decide for yourself how you can make your community attractive to people.
Then, you’ll want to market it. How would you market it? You can comment under popular posts, you can make a story, or share a post.
10. Sell account
Once you have grown your account enough, you may also want to consider selling your account using platforms such as Social Tradia.
This won’t be possible for everyone since if your account is centered around your brand unless you sell your entire brand, no one would have much use for your account.
If you have an Instagram account where you share posts from a certain niche it may be easier to make the transfer since the content doesn’t center on one brand.
However, some people wouldn’t care about who follows you and for what reason as long as you got decent following size and an okay engagement rate.
All that followers could be worth a pretty penny. It may be good to check it out.
For me, I get sentimental and attached to things so I wouldn’t ever consider selling any of my social media accounts.
Final thought
Here we are, at the end of the blog post. There are truly so many ways to make use of the free tools available to us and make money.
Most people use Instagram to share pictures of themselves but it also is a great platform to create an additional stream of income for yourself.
I hope you’ve gathered some useful knowledge today and use it for your own good.
Good luck!
